Metzger is a Ph.D., specializing in literature and drama at The University of New Mexico, where she is a Lecturer in the English Department and an Adjunct Professor in the University Honors Program. In the following essay, Metzger asks ifLanford Wilson's play Hot L Baltimore can correctly be defined as comedy, or if the urban theatre is a euphemism for tragedy.

At the conclusion of Lanford Wilson's Hot L Baltimore, the inhabitants face eviction, and for many of them, homelessness. Some of them face even more uncertain futures. Suzy, beaten in the first act by a customer, leaves the hotel to live with a new pimp. Pimps have abused her in the past, and there is every reason to suspect that this alliance will end in the same way. All three prostitutes face similar futures and the possibility of violence. Another resident, James, who is incapable of...